Mr.+Belliveau

Mr. Belliveau A **personal injury lawyer** is a [|lawyer] who provides legal representation to those who claim to have been injured, physically or psychologically, as a result of the [|negligence] or wrongdoing of another person, company, government agency, or other entity. Thus, personal injury lawyers tend to be especially knowledgeable and have more experience with regard to the area of [|law] known as[|tort law], which includes civil wrongs and economic or non-economic damages to a person’s property, reputation, or rights. include component="comments" page="Mr. Belliveau" limit="10"

Make-up Assignment

Click on the picture of Mr. Belliveau which will take you to his website. Answer the following questions: 1.What do you mean by "personal injury"? What sorts of cases does this include? Identify three examples and describe the cases. 2. Examples of cases/ settlements, awards 3. How much do you charge for a personal injury case? 4. When and why is it important to contact a personal injury attorney?

Read each of the following descriptions. A civil suit was brought by the injured party in each case. For each case (1) Identify the plaintiff and defendant / defendants and (2) determine whether the defendant should pay for the plaintiff’s damages. (3) List two questions that you would like answered about the facts in each case.

1. 21 year old girl is backseat passenger in vehicle on two lane blacktop road in rural county. Due to the configuration of the road and the absence of line striping on the road, oncoming car crosses the center line and strikes car occupied by girl head on. The 21 year old receives serious head injuries resulting in near complete blindness and a severe diminution in cognitive abilities. A lawsuit was filed alleging that the oncoming driver was careless in crossing over the center and that Penn DOT and a highway pavement contractor were negligent because of their failure to put down lane striping at the close of the construction season.

2. Mother parks in the parking lot at a convenience store. She leaves her three young daughters in the backseat of the car and goes inside to buy formula for her infant. She can see the car at all times while she is in the store. The parking lot is located at the bottom of a curve that bears to the right as it comes down a hill. The roadway is two lanes. There is a car on the two-lane roadway intending to make a left hand turn onto a side street when a fully loaded garbage truck came down the hill. Seeing the car stopped at the bottom, the garbage truck driver slams on his brakes, causing his truck to slide off the roadway, down an earthen hillside into the parking lot of the convenient store, crushing the car with the three young girls in it.The mother rushed out and heard all three girls screaming. Before they could get her out of the car, the seven year old girl died and her two sisters suffered injuries. The roadway in question had been the subject of much controversy in the years because of limited sight distance and the absence of a turning lane for vehicles at the bottom of the hill. Suit was filed against the trucking company for excess speed and inattentiveness in driving and against Penn DOT for absence of a safe roadway.

3. Thirty-three year old father of two young boys was working as a mechanic at an airplane maintenance facility. He worked in a hangar large enough to accommodate three full size jet planes. The hangar opening was 240 feet wide and 20 feet high. There were eight motorized hangar doors to close the hangar up. Each of the doors was on a separate track. All the doors ran parallel to one another. The doors were 32 feet long, 27 ½ feet tall and 16 inches wide. Each was controlled by continuous pressure switches on the surface of each door. There were a total of four switches on each door, one on the inside at each end and one on the outside at each end. These were surface mounted switches. The mechanics would go in and out of the hangar by sliding through gaps between two hangar doors. Our client’s husband was killed when, as he attempted to slide through an opening, he inadvertently depressed one of the switches and the door moved, crushing him between the adjacent door in a space only four and half inches wide.Suit was filed against the designer and manufacturer of the hangar doors for failure to have flush mounted safety switches and reverse bumpers. 4. A foursome of inexperienced golfers is playing on a crowded course with a threesome of excellent golfers behind them. On one occasion, a drive lands near the foursome. On a par five, 550 yd hole, with a left hand bend in the fairway, the foursome has putted out and are in their carts, on the cart path on the right hand side of the rough. One of the threesome hits his second shot from 275 yards out, doesn't yell "fore" and ball hits passenger in right between the eyes.

5. My client has a leaky tire and to stop the leak, he purchases a product with a flammable propellant to put into tire. Several days later, he notices that there is a hairline crack on the rim. He goes to his father's garage and attempts to weld the crack. There is an explosion and he suffers severe facial injuries and loses an eye as well. The can says the contents are highly flammable but there are commercially available nonflammable propellants but they cost more.

6. A twenty-month old baby was in a booster shield car seat behind the driver’s seat. The vehicle that he was occupying had brake failure, ran off the road and into a frontal collision with a retaining wall. The twenty-month old jackknifed over the booster shield and suffered a liver contusion and a cervical cord injury. He was taken to the hospital and was moving all extremities at the time. A hard cervical collar was placed on at the hospital.Twenty-four hours later, the hard cervical collar was removed by a doctor without any diagnostic studies being performed to determine whether or not there was a cervical spine injury. Twenty hours later, the baby was an incomplete quadriplegic due to spinal cord injury from swelling in the cervical area. Suit was filed against the manufacturer of the car seat, several doctors and the hospital where the baby was treated.

7. She is short and very heavy for her height. As part of trip through haunted house, patrons may go from one level to another by means of a circular stainless steel tube slide. She enters slide and breaks both ankles when one of her tennis shoes catches on interior of slide and she is thrown about in slide. No one else has similar accident at this haunted house. (Real story).

8. Young woman at a ski resort. She watches attendant set bindings but she doesn't realize that they are set too high so that bindings don't release as easily. While skiing on an intermediate slope, skier falls, bindings don't release and she breaks a leg as a result. (I don't know if you are skier- bindings hold boots to skis-the more experienced/better skiers want the bindings to be set higher so that the bindings don't release while skiing. Also, experienced skiers don't fall as much.)

9. 27 year old man is on an elevator in a high rise apartment building. There are a number of other passengers, including children on the elevator. The elevator is about 5 feet above a floor. The passengers are trapped inside for 45 minutes before a maintenance man comes by and opens the door to the elevator shaft. He then tells the people in the elevator how to open the elevator doors. There is about a 2 foot opening between the floor of the elevator and the frame of the door opening at the landing. Our client then helps hand out the children and assists the other people out of the elevator.He is the last person to exit the elevator. He lies on the floor of the elevator and slides out feet first. He loses his balance upon landing and goes into the shaft, falling approximately 5 stories.